Future of Affixes in m+

I’ve recently came across some notes/videos that blizzard is considering of changing or dumping m+ affixes all together due to most players finding affixes just annoying.

Instead of removing them or nerfing them, how about changing affixes into positive buffs that instead rewards players for doing the extra mechanics?

Ofc that would mean making the dungeons a bit more difficult in general, and instead giving players a boost when playing around the current affix mechanics.

Here are some example of how that could look like:

Thundering
When cleared, you get % damage/healing increase for x seconds

Sanguine
Slain enemies leave behind a pool of magic essence, when stepping over the pool you get a movement speed buff for x seconds.

Awakened
If you deal with the obelisk, it will instead join your final boss encounter dealing extra dmg or supporting with buffs/healing.

Tyrannical + Fortified
Can probably be removed all together. or keep them as they are. Makes every other week a bit more different in gameplay.

Prideful (or basically any other slain enemy does x dmg/debuff thing)
Can probably be merged for a “close range mechanic” or something that might force temporary positioning of players.
Slain enemies burst in stackable defensive (armor/resistance) buff within 15 yards.
Infinite stacks, but new stacks don’t refresh the duration. last for 30-45sec starting from first stack applied.

I guess you get the idea, there have been affixes like that in the past that instead reward playing mechanics instead of punishing for not doing them.
Like: Tormented, Encrypted, overflowing… etc.

In addition to static weekly affixes, why not make it so one of the affixes is a random role specific one?

After you insert the key, each player gets to choose between 3 random affixes for their role, almost like the buffs in torghast towers.

So there could be static weekly affixes + one of the affix being dynamic personal choice.
Making every run unique.

They don’t have to be huuuge game changing buffs, but something that just spices up and makes the gameplay a bit different.

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Because im assuming theyre looking into ways to give m+ difficulty in a fashion that isnt unfun, turning them all into positives would overload player power potientally. And cause u to overpower the content.

Also itd require classes to be balanced around the affixs whjch could prove negative for classes in other game modes.

I think affixs being removed in trade of a new system is likely a better outcome then complicating the balancing factors.

If you scrap current affixes people will still struggle
cause the number one affix is the lack of knowledge about their own game
did you ever noticed that some people are doing insanely low DPS in high ilvl gear
that is the hidden affix
But i like your idea that affixes should be more positive
it is always nice to help people so i can have easier game in PUG :smiley:

Think Ion said they won’t be doing positive affixes since that’d sort of make higher keys easier than the lower ones.

Here’s to removing them all if they can’t turn them into positive but with some risk.
I’ve grown tired of even on trash packs having 3+ overlapping garbage mechanics. It’s also extremely bad that in certain weeks some roles better take a break than try to play through.

Ha. On the day Blizzard actually manage to figure out how to do that, I’ll get out of my wheelchair and do a little dance.

Seriously though, they need to figure something out and it better be something drastic. Mythics feel like a bloated mess.
Challenging and fun are NOT mutually exclusive. I don’t understand how they’ve been copy and pasting the same mechanics year after year and they still haven’t realised that Mythics feel like a game that’s still in beta testing.

tbh, i find M+ Perfectly fun, its just specific affix combinations and at times the people you end up in a group with that cause frustration.

Im confused about this, what is wrong with m+? Who is it that is pushing for m+ affixes to completely disappear?
Sure blizzard have done a few misstakes when it comes to affixes, looking back i cant even fathom how i could stand skittish weeks. And i do think that affixes are “annoying”, but thats the point of them, to make things difficult.

Using the logic that affixes are annoying why dont we remove all mechanics from raid bosses aswell since it would be much more comfortable to dps without having to make sure you are not standing in the fire? Maybe another solution would be for blizz to just reintroduce challenge modes for those that dont want to have to deal with affixes.

Bolstering: if u kill an enemy with 6+ stacks of bolstering, group recieves -1% damage reduction for next pull. - can stack - if u fail next pull - all stacks are reseting.
Storming: dodging all gives to ur group +1% haste for the next pull, if tank soaked all - tank gets +1% dps for next pull - can stack - if u fail next pull - all stacks are reseting.
Bursting: if ur group survived 8+ stacks of full ticked bursting (chao MD, Dwarfs and immuners), group recieves +2% of healing for next pull - can stack - if u fail next pull - all stacks are reseting.
Explosives: if u killed all orbs in pull - group gets 1% of crit chance for next pull - can stack - if u fail next pull - all stacks are reseting.
Raging: If u havenot disenraged any mobs - group gets +1% versatility for next pull - can stack - if u fail next pull - all stacks are reseting.
Quaking: if the group played well and didnt link each other - group gets 1% of mastery - if u fail next time - all stacks are reseting.
Sanguine - if mobs are not healed in sanguine during the pull - groups recieve +1% dps increase for next pull - can stack - if u fail next pull - all stacks are reseting.
Spitefull - if nobody dies from Shades - ur group recieves +1% HP for next pull - can stack - if u fail next pull - all stacks are reseting.

Idk there are so many things to implement to make m+ Content much intereseting and much interaktive. Idk why are they keep doing every season same thing again and again and again and again and again.

I would like to scrap Fort/Tyra alltogether (it’s in for WAY to long), replace the +2 Affix with a/the Seasonal one (maybe even do a Rotation out of ALL previous seasonal Affixes?) and keep +4/+7 the way it is.

Doing it like this, you don’t have a huge difficulty-spike at 10 with the Seasonal one, nor do dungeons get far easier (like they did with BFA S4, SL S3+S4).
Also Dungeons could be tuned properly, when there are no more Boss/Trash HP/DMG increases.

Alot of the stuff you are suggesting is getting rewards for doing the affixes right. But i would say that you already get a buff when you dodge a storming tornado and that is that you can continue dpsing.

yeah, reward to be not one shoted from standart fight mechanic - Tornado deals damage as well btw. :slight_smile:

Bliz has already said what they’re gonna do…

Seasonal affix gone for S2…
Lvl 7 affixes getting a look at.

Depending on seasons some affixes will be switched out and in, depending on the dungeons design for that season ect.

They dont want positive affixes or remove them altogether, as the point of affixes is still to make the dungeons harder.

Annoying and difficult are not the same thing. At the very least there at least needs to be some kind of balance of annoying vs difficult.

Not good enough.

Seems pretty good to me

Im not sure that is true when it comes to m+ actually. The only scenario i can think of when a affix becomes “annoying” is when the affix becomes too much.

One current example imo is storming on big trash pulls. As a melee on storming weeks during big pulls, if you dont have someone that can soak all the tornado knockups its impossible to dodge all the tornados and you just spend most of the time dodging tornados in combination with other trash abilities.

I would simply rotate seasonal affixes every week, and scrap all other affixes (including forti/tyran).

We had enough good seasonal affixes already, and most of them used to have positive/negative side, and also some heavily impacted routing.

Just as example, we could have like 6 weeks rotation of these affixes, havin 1active ebery week:

  • Nyalotha Obelisks (nice stuff to skip stuff ir completely re-route dungeons)
  • prideful (SL S1 although in a bit different way, so it’s worth killing in high keys as well)
  • Tormented (SoD SL S2 affix)
  • Reaping (BFA affix, where every 20% you get swarmed by ghosts, but maybe add some sort of positive to it)
  • thundering
  • Shrouded might be to strong, it was giga busted with everyone having constant bloodlust.

But the idea is - have 1 affix, but much much more impactful.

Even some of the current lvl4/lvl7 ones could be reworked to be more impactful, but would also benefit players in some way.

  • explosive (when orb is destroyed, it explodes, dealing X amount of dmg (1-2% of max hp?) to all active enemies withing 30yards)
  • sanguine (old effect is gone. Instead every 1s gives a short 20s stacking buff/debuff while standing in it - increases dmg done by 2%/stack, increases dmg taken by 1%/stack, reduces movement speed by 1%/stack). Something similar to H+ affix of HoT/HoS in wrath.
  • grevious - now also affects mobs - when a player die, deal 2% of max hp every sec for 4s, effect stacks. (Some meme death run strategies? xD).

Etc.etc. would be a fun shake-up :slight_smile:

No future. because we are in the future atm. Its been 6 years, we are still playing with same affixes that killed m + already… And they bring worst (spiteful) melee killer… They ruined their own game !

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